The present invention is generally directed to cup dispensers and, more particularly, to a countertop supported dispenser for dispensing beverage cups and the like.
Beverage cup dispensers, such as those typically found in fast food restaurants, convenience stores, and similar establishments, are often of a type that include a rack or housing into which one or more nested stacks of paper, plastic or foam beverage cups can be loaded. In one type of dispenser, a spring or similar biasing force (e.g., gravity) is applied at the feed end of a tubular housing to bias a nested stack of beverage cups (or containers) toward a discharge opening formed in the opposite end of the tubular housing. Clips or a flexible gasket (diaphragm) are secured to the discharge end of the tubular housing and engage the outer surface or lip of the outermost cup of the nested stack. The clips or the flexible gasket apply a small resistive force to the spring bias to hold the nested stack of cups in the tubular housing. When the outermost cup is withdrawn from the tubular housing, the resistive force opposing the spring bias is momentarily relieved which allows the spring to force the next cup in the nested stack into the discharge opening. More particularly, as the outermost or lowermost cup is extracted from the nested stack, the clips or flexible gasket are forced outward thus relieving the holding force on the lowermost cup. When the cup has been fully withdrawn from the dispenser, the clips or flexible gasket engage the next cup in the nested stack so as to retain the nested stack in the tubular housing. Some beverage cup dispensers are fitted with one more coils at the discharge end of the tubular housing that are operative to hold the nested stack of beverage cups in the tubular housing and grab the next cup in the nested stack when the outermost or lowermost cup is being withdrawn.
Flexible gaskets are commonly used to engage the outermost cup of the nested stack because they can accommodate cups of different diameters without requiring customer modification. Over time however the gaskets can began to wear and lose their shape memory. Also, the gaskets can begin to tear. Clips have been designed that have a longer usable life than gaskets but clips typically require an end user, i.e., customer, to set the position of the clips to accommodate a given cup diameter. In many instances, three or more radially spaced clips are used and thus requires the customer to set the position of several clips. Additionally, if the clips are not properly positioned, a cup, as it is being withdrawn, may be pulled askew, which can mar or damage the cup rendering it unusable. Coils can be similarly difficult to position and if not properly tensioned can result in double dispensing or damage to the cup as it being withdrawn.
Conventional tubular dispensers are also generally large and relatively costly to manufacture. The tubular dispensers require the tubular housing, one or more end caps at the feed and discharge ends, the aforementioned clips or gasket, and a lengthy metallic spring. When paired or tripled together to accommodate multiple cup sizes, the footprint of the beverage cup station can be quite large and occupy significant countertop space.
To eschew the complexity and costliness of conventional spring-biased beverage cup dispenser such as those described above, low cost pull-type dispensers have been developed that rely solely upon gravity to present a nested stack of beverage cups for one-at-a-time dispensing. In addition to be generally cheaper to manufacture, these pull-type dispensers are typically lighter and smaller than other types of beverage cup dispensers, making their use preferred for convenience stores, cafeterias, fast food restaurants, and the like.
These pull-type beverage cup dispensers typically have a cuboid wire frame designed to hold one or more nested stacks of beverage cups. The frame includes one or more ramps along which the nested stacks of beverage cups sit so that gravity can force the nested stacks toward respective dispensing ends at the front of the cuboid frame. Alternately, the ramps could be planar and a spring could bias the nested stack toward the dispensing end. In one form, rather than clips or gaskets, one or more springs are arranged horizontally across the front of the frame in a cup dispensing lane. The spring is designed to catch the lip of an outermost (lowermost) beverage cup as the previous outermost beverage cup is being extracted. In some instances, a pair of springs arranged side-by-side, front-to-back are used to cooperatively catch the lip of the outermost beverage cup. One of the drawbacks of using the spring to keep the nested stack of cups from falling out of the dispenser is tuning the spring to match the type and size of cups to be dispensed. That is, if the spring applies too great a holding force, the spring may mar the beverage cups as they are being extracted. On the other hand, if the spring applies too loose a holding force, the spring may be unable to effectively “catch” the next beverage cup resulting in multiple cups being extracted at a time. In both instances, an improperly tuned spring can result in unnecessary beverage cup waste.